Australia
The Big Battery officially switched on
On the 1st December South Australia officially turned on the Hornsdale Power Reserve – the Tesla Big Battery. The battery, the world’s largest at 100MW/129MWh, was the result of tweets between South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Musk had promised to install the battery within 100 days or it would be free. The battery is connected to the grid next to the 315MW Hornsdale wind farm and proved its worth even before the official switch on. The battery discharged 70MW into the grid in the afternoon peak the previous day from stored wind energy allowing for less gas energy to be used and reducing wholesale prices.
AEMO is summer ready
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has released its summer readiness report. The summer is Australia’s period of peak level demand which also coincides with the increased risk of bush fires and storms, all of which create stresses on the network.
This has been exacerbated this year by the closure of the 1.6 GW Hazelwood Power Station in March which has led AEMO to ensure that its grid will be ready for the expected stresses. AEMO has countered the closure by providing additional gas-powered reserves, reserve contracts and demand response initiatives. How this works will be tested in the near future as AEMO this week has issued Lack of Reserve (LOR) notifications to the energy market as South Australia and Victoria have already reached high temperatures this month.
USA
New York
Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill on Nov. 29 to create a statewide energy storage target. The law calls on the Public Service Commission to investigate and set a target for 2030. Once set, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the Long Island Power Authority will run a deployment program to meet the goal. The program must consider both customer-sited and front-of-the-meter storage, evaluating its use for transmission upgrade deferral and peak load reduction in constrained areas. This comes at a time when there is disagreement about the need for storage in NYS.
Renewables in US
New, unexpected worries have arisen for renewables as BEAT Bill goes to the Senate. It could sweep aside various production tax credits which are essential for financing renewables . It had been thought, although there are always worries about PTCs, that they were reasonably safe. However, this Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT) provision may also be used to cover PTCs.
Wider Globe
India Government details Plan for Ambitious 2022 Renewable Targets
In 2015, the Indian Government announced that it intended to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy so that by 2022 there would be 175 GW of Renewable Energy, including 100 GW of solar PV and 60 GW of wind power. These plans were both extremely ambitious and relatively vague. Since then, falling deployment costs have accelerated the rate of renewable installations and further details of how the targets will be made have been made public, raising confidence that the targets can be achieved, if not exceeded. In November the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy published its trajectory for achieving its targets. This includes:
- Establishing plans for domestic manufacturing facilities to the tune of 20GW.
- Suggesting new geographies to place renewables, including floating solar power plants over dams, offshore wind and hybrid solar-wind power systems.
- The Ministry, along with the regional States, would detail the bids for ground mounted solar parks to reach 20 GW in 2017-18, 30 GW in 2018-19 and 30 GW in 2019-20.
- For wind power, 32 GW have already been commissioned with a further 8 GW this year. A total of 10 GW will be bid for in the financial year 2018 and 10 GW in 2019, leaving a margin of 2 years for commissioning of projects.
Costa Rica Break New Renewable Generation Record
As of the end of November, for over 300 days in 2017 100% of Costa Rica’s electricity, on any particular day, was generated by renewable energy, a new record for the country. This includes over 201 consecutive days for 100% renewables, since the beginning of May. It was reported that to date 78.26 percent of electricity has come from hydropower, 10.29 percent from wind, 10.23 percent from geothermal energy and 0.84 percent from biomass and solar. In 2016, on average 98% of the country’s power came from renewables. However, the key question is when will Costa Rica, have 100% renewable power for 365 consecutive days ?
Posted by: HPoulter
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